The Hidden Door

I didn't notice it until the day after I had taken the photo.

I can usually park on Kid 2's street, and had I been able to do so, last Friday, I would have never seen the artwork, let alone what it concealed. But there was construction that had a huge swath of the road torn up, including in front of her house, so I had to keep driving and found a vacant spot four blocks away.

It's hot in Toronto and our kid lives in a triplex where her bedroom occupies the third floor, and because heat rises, this room swelters. She had the same issue in the last apartment she kept, and so DW and I bought a small, portable air-conditioning unit that didn't draw a ton of power but kept her room cool enough to sleep comfortably.

But when our daughter moved out of that place and was going to be staying in a new place that was too small to afford space for the AC unit, DW and I brought it back home, where we kept it in the basement, waiting for when she'd have a place that had room for it.

Little did we know that she'd be moving out of that small place a few days later.

Shortly after we returned from vacation, Kid 2 contacted me to say that her new apartment was becoming hot and she'd need the AC unit as soon as it was possible to bring it down. Because I'm not working* these days, I said I could bring it down on her next day off.

That next day was last Friday.

Thankfully, the drive to Toronto was uneventful that day and I made it down fairly quickly. As I reached Scarborough, Kid 2 called me to let me know that there was no parking on her street due to construction. I said no problem, that I would find a place nearby and call her once I had, so that she could meet me and help me carry the parts for the AC unit.

Hence the space four blocks away.

Kid 2 led me along a side street that was a bit longer of a route than the main street, but she thought it would be easier to wheel the AC unit along a sidewalk with fewer people, and she was right, though the sidewalk on the side street was somewhat uneven for the small wheels of the unit.

When we reached her house, I realized that I had forgotten her jacket, which was in the back seat of the car. Kid 2 had worn it to Ottawa the day before we flew to Peru, and because it was too warm for where we were going, she had to leave it behind.

Kid 2 needed to take a shower so I told her that I'd go back to the car while she did so. This time, I walked along the main street, as it was a shorter route.

But I also noticed, as I got to the car, that there was an alley that ran immediately behind the buildings on the main street and it seemed to go all the way back to Kid 2's street. And so, once I had her coat, I took this seemingly deserted lane.

Toronto, like many cities, is full of graffiti. It's something that I love to see, and as you may know from many of my previous posts, I love capturing some great examples of this street art. About halfway down the lane, there was one piece of graffiti that caught my attention, so I stopped to photograph it. Though I did throw one of my D-SLRs in the back of the car before I left for Toronto, I only had my phone on me.

By the time I got back to Kid 2's place, she was showered and dressed, so we went out for lunch. Though brief, it was a nice visit. But because I wanted to beat Toronto's rush-hour traffic, I gave her a hug after lunch and said goodbye.

Toronto traffic is unpredictable and even at 3:00, it still took me an hour to get through the city and reach the 401.

I didn't look at the photo that I had shot until the next day. And looking at the relatively small size of my smartphone's screen, I thought that the colours and the texture of the snail were particularly good. It was a shame that some of the paint had been scratched off and that there was some sort of sticker on the shell.

It was then that I looked closer and saw that it wasn't a sticker on the paint. It was a steel plate and a handle to a door. When I had taken the photo, I hadn't seen the door on the wall at all.

If I hadn't mentioned the hidden door in the title or said anything about it at all, would you have noticed it right away?

Happy Friday!